Tag: #LeadershipDevelopment
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When the Truth Becomes Too Expensive
The hidden cost of maintaining a reality that is no longer true What happens to us when the truth, the unvarnished truth, becomes socially, professionally, relationally, or psychologically too expensive to tell? Justin was out on the golf course with some friends as one of his buddies shared the latest and greatest achievement his wife…
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The Return
And why getting back to normal may be the wrong goal I took some time away this week to honor an important anniversary. And this morning, I found myself thinking about how we return to “normal.” To our sense of self and the rhythm of those around us. To our routines. After grief, illness, disappointment,…
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The Dog Days of Disappointment
What my dogs taught me about resentment I’m a dog person and have been all my life. One of the things my dogs have taught me is that they carry expectations just like we do. Grab a leash or mention a walk and my dogs will jump, wag, yip in the happy expectation that we…
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The Life That Survival Built
I was raised to be an overfunctioner. Rural settings, constant moves, and instability created a parentified child who grew into a hyper-empathetic, overfunctioning adult. In every relationship and every career setting, I showed up as the door prize…the unexpected dynamo who quietly won everyone over. “I just want to be a receptionist,” a partner teased me…
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When The Costume Changes, But The Operating System Doesn’t
Congruent Reinvention The personal development world has turned reinvention into another performance. Become your highest self, your future self, your 2.0 self, your most successful self. We are obsessed with optimizing, scaling, upgrading, reinventing. But most people reinvent from the very survival patterns they are unhappy with and trying to escape. They simply reinvent their…
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The Agreements You Never Made But Keep Showing Up For
The Unspoken Agreements That Are Running Your Life You are living, right now, inside an agreement you may not even acknowledge exists. It’s not a real contract. It’s not a conversation you remember having. It’s an agreement that was never spoken out loud, never negotiated, never signed and yet it is shaping how you show…
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The Intimacy We Forgot to Scale
You wanted to be seen. You wanted eyes on your craft, your creation, your expertise, the uniqueness of your concept. Everyone does. It’s the first hunger, the one that gets you to sketch out your idea on a napkin, share your original idea with peers, expand into public introductions/demonstrations, then proceed to launch. Many of…
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The Meaning Famine in Leadership
The demands were endless. They were unreasonable. They sounded like: “Do more with less support.”“Be faster with less resources.”“Figure it out with less communication.” While juggling competing priorities that were never actually reconciled, only relayed, you feel micromanaged and abandoned at the same time. Firehose in hand, prepared to put out the latest blaze, except…
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Behind The Curtain
It’s not the absence of people. You are surrounded by them. In fact, you often feel there are too many in the room, not too few. The waiting room is full. The inbox is full. The calendar is full. People need you at work, at home, in the group chat, on the board, in the…
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A Thousand Tiny Goodbyes
It was nothing. It’s expected even, right? Part of the ebb and flow. That’s where your mind goes as you read the polite message declining the renewal. The rationalization arrives before the disappointment does. It arrives so fast you almost miss the fact that something just landed. Something that stings a little. Something that, if…